Strange Radio Signal From Deep Space Baffles Scientists
Strange Radio Signal From Deep Space Baffles Scientists
We’ve received a strange signal from across the galaxy, and astronomers are struggling to understand what it means.
They know what’s emitting the signals. It’s a neutron star named ASKAP J193505.1+214841.0 (ASKAP J1935+2148 for short), located in the plane of the Milky Way, some 15,820 light-years from Earth.
But the signals themselves are like none we’ve ever seen before. The star goes through periods of strong pulses, periods of weak pulses, and periods of no pulses at all.
What we don’t know, according to a team led by astrophysicist Manisha Caleb of the University of Sydney in Australia, is why. The strange object poses a fascinating challenge to our models of neutron star evolution – which, let’s be honest, are currently pretty far from complete.